I know we would all agree that education is one of the most important elements of our lives. From the time we are born until the day we leave this earth, we are continually learning from a variety of sources. One source of education, which I will call formal, is highly valued and we strive for the best possible formal education for ourselves as well as our children. Therefore, decisions about where I place my child to receive this education and by whom are some of the most critically important decisions I make as a parent.

We are told in scripture that if we “train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not part from it.” (Proverbs 22:6) Training (or education) is the process of molding the mind, heart, and character of a person. Just like a potter’s hands guide and direct the final outcome of the piece of clay to be a pot or a vase or a cup, so a child is molded by the various teachers in their lives as to how to think, act and respond in and about the world. As Christian parents, it is our greatest desire that our children understand and know truth as revealed by God, be well trained in how to think like God thinks, and act the way God desires His children to act.

However, there is a problem with public education. Proverbs 1:7 enlightens us that, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” And again in 9:10, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” God’s Word makes it very clear that if we try to separate the knowledge and love of God from the rest of what is commonly called truth, it is not truth, because our understanding about God is critical to the understanding of the world. If reality about the world is that it includes God, (and it does, He is the reason why everything exists both as the sole cause and purpose) then anything called knowledge that is considered separate from Him is not true knowledge. One of the criticisms that has been leveled at Christian schools over the years, is that they shelter children from the “real” world. Since Scripture defines true knowledge as being entirely dependent on an understanding of God at the beginning, Christian schools do anything but exclude reality. We teach children to see the entire world along with the truth that God is Creator and Sustainer. This criticism also assumes that we must expose our children to the things they will encounter in their lives as adults in order to adequately prepare them for the ideas, attitudes and wrong actions in the world. Sending our children to the Christian school doesn’t prevent them from seeing and experiencing wrong thinking and evil actions in their neighborhoods, communities and the world. There is plenty of contact with these without giving them a daily immersion of it in the government schools. To be brutally honest, it is the public schools that are sheltering children by not teaching them an accurate view of the world because they must, by requirement, exclude God.

In the first blog of this June series, I made the case that public schools harm our children (and us) by instilling within us a worldview that is at best secular-humanist and most likely much worse. Our worldview is what shapes how we think about everything and how we act and respond. Those who were the founders of public schools knew that it was possible to change a culture, to transform a nation by simply teaching the children to think the way the founders wanted them to think. As the children grow up and become the movers and shakers of the society in business, politics and life, they will automatically instill the kind of worldview that was taught to them as children. Many of the dramatic cultural shifts that we have experienced in our society can at least be in large part traced back to the worldviews that were established about one generation ago. For example, those who hold the most influence today are the ones who grew up in the generation of love and peace we commonly connect with the hippy movement. “Free love” (sex),” make love not war”, were some of the prominent sayings of the people of this decade. Is it any surprise then, that promiscuity, divorce, and sexual extremism are some of the key things we are fighting losing battles over in our society today? And why do you think the choice drug of the hippies, marijuana, is becoming more and more acceptable in today’s society? This did not just happen accidentally. It happened as a result of the worldview change of a generation.

Education is designed to influence children’s minds and hearts. We take our children and put them under the care and protection of adults who are called upon to impart the truth and knowledge they believe is important. We place them in a room of peers who exert a great deal of influence to conform to the thinking and mind set of the whole. All of these things place a significant amount of pressure upon our children to agree with and accept everything they are told without question. Therefore we shouldn’t be surprised, as alluded by Voddie Baucham, that when we send our children to be trained by Caesar, they come out acting like Romans.* That is the purpose and design of education.

However, if we desire our children to think like God thinks, and act the way God desires us to act, then we are going to have to send them somewhere else to be educated. Many parents choose to teach their children at home, to make sure the worldview of their children agrees with their own. Others choose to send their children to Christian schools because they know the teachers and the things taught are more in line with the things of God.

What harm is public education for your children? Plenty! As parents we only get one shot at raising and educating our children. Once they have been taught and trained, it is next to impossible to counter or change their worldview. If we send them to Caesar, they will be Romans. Therefore we want to get it right from the beginning. What will you choose?